I hadn’t read a John Grisham book for a while, so whilst waiting for the latest Jack Reacher book I thought I would delve back into one of my previous favourite authors. I got the book off a family member who had already finished reading it and suggested that I take a look as they knew it might be something I would enjoy.

Once I started to read the book, I did wonder why I had not read any of the John Grisham novels for a while. As with any of the good authors like Lee Child, John Grisham really does create good plots and characters that entice you into the book within a matter of minutes.

Are John Grisham books any good?

I personally think that John Grisham writes some of the best crime thriller books around at the moment. The books have enough mystery and suspense to keep any Jack Reacher fan happy. I remember one of the books that I got for my birthday back in 2013 called the “Litigators”, I couldn’t put it down. Needless to say the family were not happy on when I didn’t really interact with them during the day as my nose was in the book for the whole of my Birthday. If you love legal, mystery books with lots of suspense, you would have to look at this book to start off with.

Back of book

David Zinc has it all: Big firm, big salary, life in the lawyer’s fast lane.

Until the day he snaps and throws it all away.

Leaving the world of corporate law far behind, he talks himself into a new job with Finley & Figg. A self-styled ’boutique’ firm with only two partners, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are ambulance-chasing street lawyers who hustle nickel-and-dime cases, dreaming of landing the big win.

For all his Harvard Law Degree and five years with Chicago’s top firm, Zinc has never entered a courtroom, never helped a client who really needed a lawyer, never handled a gun.

All that is about to change.

The very clever writing of John Grisham really outlines the smallness of the firm that is portrayed here and the way that they take on a larger firm who are using high class professional lawyers is a great sight to behold. There are elements of the Erin Brokovic moviein this storyline, but the small firm are not “Holy than thou” as they have a few shall we say behind the scenes illegal moments that surprise you.

You can buy in my opinion one of the best crime thriller books that John Grisham has written by clicking HERE.

What about the Whistler book?

I must admit this booked started off well with brilliant characters that you wanted to get to know more about and a great plot situation that seemed like it was really going to grip you in the first few chapters. The book starts with Lacy Stoltz, an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is looking into an alleged corrupt judge, which I think has a slight twist in the plot as this is something that isn’t usually investigated. We all expect judges to be clean and true in their role. John Grisham as with all great mystery books, lets us look at a judicial system in a whole different light. Can a judge be corrupt and who does the investigating of a judge? Good questions are asked in this book.

I do think that as the book went on, something happens to one of the main characters, I’m not going to spoil the plot but I do think it really sets the book back in terms of pace and atmosphere. Once this incident happens the whole book sorts of slows down and then comes towards an amicable conclusion.

Would you recommend this book?

There is a great female lead character in this book, who is strong and really sets the tone of book from the out set. If you have cravings for the gap in between the next new Jack Reacher book then I would seriously recommend this book to use as a filler. Even with the plot slowing down at the end, this book is still a great read. Go to my buy the book here page to get this book at a low price.

For those of you that would like to get into the John Grisham series then look here to add some more to the collection.

I also would recommend that you pre order the latest book from Lee Child as it will soon come round for November. Order the latest Jack Reacher book titled “Past Tense” HERE NOW!

Conclusion

I’m going to be slightly controversial here, as I do like the John Grisham books, hopefully I’ve pointed this out to you. The only thing that is missing, for me, is the action man the hard core fights and tension. With a crime thriller book I want to be tense, I want to be surrounded by mystery, I want to route for the underdog and be urging to finish the book as soon as possible.

I can’t say that I do that with many of the John Grisham books, to me they are good reads, nice books, crime thriller, yes in a NICE way. Are they like Jack Reacher novels, not really, very descriptive and fun to read but if you like Jack Reacher and Lee Child then I would go for the Michael Connelly books. The “Lincoln Lawyer” book which was made into a film, is gritty, action packed and still had the legal courtroom drama, if that is what you are after.

So to finish, YES go and look at the John Grisham books as they are good reads, but as a Jack Reacher fan, and I am promoting books like Jack Reacher. Then keep in mind the Micheal Connelly books which are some of the best crime thriller books written ever.
I’ll leave that thought with you for now………

I’m going to level with you. This book is not like Jack Reacher, it’s not my normal type of book to read but it is a crime thriller book with lots and lots of suspense and mystery. You may ask “so why did you read this book” and to be honest, I was just searching through Amazon looking for a great thriller book with good reviews.

I have read all the Jack Reacher books and decided to order Jack Reacher books from the beginning of the series book 1 to go through them again.

This book had good reviews and the basic references from my top authors Lee Child and Greg Hurwitz made me think this could be a brilliant read. So if you do like any of the Jack Reacher books then this could be for you.

What’s the plot?

Now this is what has got my attention, from the first page you realise a young woman is running away from someone, with her two children in an old car. We don’t know what she is running from but is really scared, she is also avoiding the police which makes you think that maybe she might not be the hero we think.

Back of book

Audra has finally left her abusive husband. She’s taken the family car and her young children, Sean and Louise, are buckled up in the back. This is their chance for a fresh start.

Audra keeps to the country roads to avoid attention. She’s looking for a safe place to stay for the night when she spots something in her rear-view mirror. A police car is following her and the lights are flickering. Blue and red.

As Audra pulls over she is intensely aware of how isolated they are. Her perfect escape is about to turn into a nightmare beyond her imagining. . .

Dark secrets and a heart-pounding race to reveal the truth lie at the heart of this page-turning thriller.

Full of dark secrets and heart-pounding twists, Here and Gone is the ultimate page-turner.

Is this anything like a Jack Reacher book?

As with all the Lee Child books, the writing style of Haylen Beck is very similar in defining the scenery, the short sentence tension but also the crafting of characters that make you either despise them or champion them. Like the Jack Reacher books, you have a craving to finish the book as soon as you pick it up, you really want to see what happens to Audra. There is also a character that gets introduced during the book who has a similar disposition to Jack Reacher, tough guy, ready for action and a real conviction to protect the innocent. I really liked this additional character as it then started to spill over into more of a book like the Lee Child novels which as you know I am a fan of.

Final Thoughts

I read this book within two days, it might not seem fast for some people but for me the time just seemed to whiz by, I can only put the comparison to a film I watched a while back. The film was only a 90 minutes long but keeps you with your hand in your mouth due to the tension that is built. The film is called “Breakdown” and stars Kurt Russell. This is also about a couple who have a car breakdown then when a helpful lorry driver comes along to help he takes the wife to the nearest town so they can call for help. Whilst Kurt Russell is waiting for help to come and his wife, time just floats on by, no help and no wife. He then works out how to fix his car (it’s just a dodgy wire) chases down the lorry driver who proceeds to tell him he doesn’t know who he is or his wife and has never met them in his life. Cue tension, killings, did I mention tension and lots of what has happened. You can buy the film here!

So this book is on the same wave length as this film – so if you like the film, like the sense of tension and the idea that you don’t know what is going to happen within a great plot, then buy this book now.

I’ve started to go back through the Jack Reacher novels again to see if my top five books were still the correct best books in the Lee Child series.

Most of the Jack Reacher book series I do remember, there are the odd books that have got lost along the wayside and this book is one of them. “Die Trying” was one of those older books that I’m sure at the time I thought was really good but overtime I have read other authors and this has dropped off my book reading radar!

Die Trying – What’s it about?

“Die Trying” is a great read, I love the Reacher of the older books as he seemed a bit more gritty, more of a “do-or-die” mentality. The start of the book is quite special as Jack Reacher is helping a woman who is injured and then he expectantly gets thrown into a car and kidnapped.

A frantic journey ensues with Reacher stuck in the car with the woman who helped. He finds out the she is an FBI agent and is in the same boat as him. The pace of the book really picks up as the FBI obviously are searching for their agent and think that Reacher is the prime suspect.

Reacher and the agent are transported to a commune where the main leaders are creating an army sect and want the government to meet their demands.

Again we have Reacher on his own against the sect, defending the woman agent and trying to work out what the army sect are trying to do.

There is a great battle of leadership in this book as the FBI agent wants to assume control of the situations whereby Reacher, as in many of the Lee Child novels is really the go to hero and saves her from an attack which automatically puts him in charge of a plan to escape.

Is this one of the better books?

The good thing about this book is the pace a t which the plot plays out, lots of fights which is one of the trademarks of the Lee Child books. This really is another page turner, one of those books that you will be staying up until the early hours trying to finish it. The scenery changes from Reacher in the confinement of a car, to then being confined in a mountain community are well written, you can sense the claustrophobia and the tension rising and Reacher tried to plan his escape. I like the way Lee Child keeps the sense of mystery throughout the book, you are never really sure what is going to happen with the various FBI agents and the leader of the community. There is something very clever when the leader of the community sect is obviously quite deranged as his decisions are very random which is what keeps you on edge.

What about Jack Reacher?

This book really helps you to understand a little more of Reacher’s background, his clever clock in his “head”, why he travels without much equipment. I love that fact that after each book Lee Child lets you know more and more about Jack Reacher’s personality, this is a great way of getting you to read each of the Jack Reacher novels. The first book “Killing Floor” is where you should start though to get to grips with the novel, my favourite is still “Bad luck and trouble”.

How do I buy it?

You can buy the book by clicking the link below, there are various platforms from Kindle to Hardback. I like hardback books just as they are usually the first to be published and are more my style. Kindle is great for commuters or people who don’t want to carry the book around. I would recommend this book for action and suspense, it does start a little slower than the previous “Killing Floor” book but is a very very good read.

My name is Glenford and I have been looking round the internet to find a way of making a side income online. I have been through many different options within the google search engine and tried to evaluate which companies would give me the best option to make money.

I wanted to know how people could get ranked higher in Google for their websites, which words you could use to get on the top google and yahoo pages. Was it even possible to get on the first page of Google with certain words?

GOOGLE KEY WORD SEARCH TOOL HERE!

To be honest most of the various “make money online now” adverts were so misleading, many of them were asking for an upfront payment, lots of reviews of people standing outside expensive cars saying it can be done. Most of these I quietly discarded and kept delving into sites where it there seemed to be real value.

One of the sites I came across was Wealthy Affiliate, they seemed to have a lot of reviews and people generally were pleased with the company. There didn’t seem to be any major shouting or ranting about wealth and six figure sums, so in my scepticism I tried a few of the review contacts to see if this was legitimate.

The general picture for this company seemed to be a way of setting up your business through a niche that you yourself pick, then pushing that niche out into the worldwide web. From this traffic can be seen, various adverts can be used to generate income and the more hard work that you put in with content and marketing, the more the traffic and income increases.

It seemed a little too easy, so whilst chatting to various people who were doing this, one of the main things that persuaded me was the word set up for FREE! Yes that word “FREE”, was not in the majority of the “Get rich quick” schemes I had already dismissed. My friend in Wealthy Affiliate suggested I trial it for a while and see how I go, if I don’t like it then no loss on my part.

So I signed up for the FREE account here – www.wealthyaffiliate.comand started to build my website. I had a small limited amount of self-taught training in how to build a website from previous experience but using the amazing programme “SITE RUBIX“, that is within the membership really helped.

The general sense of gradually building something for the future is one of the main things that attract people to Wealthy Affiliate, that and the superb help that is given from the community (all other people like you trying to gain some side income) and the training. Note the training is really something special, with the main creators of Wealthy Affiliate helping you out along with a certification course designed to get you from A to B swiftly during the start of your journey.

Lots of people in the community are online to help you with any questions, or when you get stuck which I have on more than one occasion. Everyone is friendly and you have this great backing of people who have been with this company for years cheering you on to do well. The main creators have set this as a priority in Wealthy Affiliate, the community helping the newest member and also pushing everyone on to their goal. Success breeds success, you have the opportunity to blog about things you have learned as well as major insights in your own world of online income generation.

I have only been with Wealthy Affiliatefor 6 weeks and have already finished the training, have a website up and running on Google, enrolled with Amazon as an associate (to sell their products and gain income for me), started another 2 websites read to go live and I have various social media accounts all marketing my site for me.

I never set out to be a billionaire or even a millionaire, the idea was to start to find a hobby in a way, which alongside I could generate some side income with the potential to upscale this hobby and increase income.

So far so good, small amounts of income generated with the adverts, traffic is increasing weekly and I’m now onto my other websites. My aim is to have 3 sites up and running by month 4 of joining.

If this is something that like me you would like to do, then go for it and join here. I recommend trying the site for FREE and seeing if this is something for your future.

Before Wealthy Affiliate

Go on then, Let’s do this, Let’s sign up to WA, the reviews look good and there isn’t any negative stuff out there.

Oh wait a negative review, oh no, its just people who thought it was going to be an easy get-rich-quick scheme.

Oh No! Training

Thoughts during training,

Wow this is what I was born for, its right what I wanted. Its hard work but let’s keep going as there will be a real sense of achievement later….

Anyone else feels the same as me?

You signed up to WA, you start learning bits each day, your website is set up, your going through the lessons as best you can, you are putting in the hours and then…….

Then, you just spiral into checking EVERYTHING!!!!

Are my posts okay, are my links working correctly, have I got too many plugins, is there any money coming in, where am I on google, am I indexed, am I signed up for Google adsense, where is Facebook, is twitter active, have I signed up for google +, what shall I post, is the content any good.

The list goes on and on and then you think am I addicted to this stuff? I wake up in the morning and first thing I do is check the WA site, have I increased my rank, check, how’s my site looking, check.

What you saying?

It may seem like I’m moaning or being a little over the top about being part of the WA community and you would be wrong. Workaholic, sort of, addicted, maybe, but in reality it’s because I want to make this thing a success, what’s the point of doing something halfhearted and then moaning after that it didn’t work.

I believe, put your all into something, then you can never say you didn’t try your best. Isn’t that what we all want, to look in the mirror at the end of each day and say I gave that my best shot.

Even with all the checks and hard work, for me this is fun, not a job but a great experience of pursuing something that eventually will become a great side income,

I had done that thing, you know the thing that really you shouldn’t do as a reviewer. I’d read some tweets about the latest Greg Hurwitz book, people seemed to be overwhelmed with praise for his latest book. Even though I tried to block out the praise and euphoria, I still couldn’t help myself. I went out and bought “Hellbent”, the latest Greg Hurwitz book that all of twitter was raving about.

Now I was in a dilemma, twitter fans talking about the book but I had not even started the second “Evan Smoak” book called “Nowhere Man”.

I knew that one of my rules is to read a book series from start to finish, rather than dipping in and out. So I got back to “Nowhere Man” hoping that it would still be a good read and worthy of the Orphan X book rating. See HERE.

So you finished “Nowhere Man”

I finished the “Nowhere Man” book and was pleasantly surprised that it had a great ending that lead straight into the third book in the “Evan Smoak” series. As I mentioned in the review the book was good, very good but not as good as “Orphan X”.Maybe my mind was already getting prepared for this third book, due to the twitter reviews, the retweets, the anticipation, could the third book in the series live up to the hype.

Is “Hellbent” a good book?

There is a short answer to this question, YES, YES, YES. If “Orphan X” was the book to hook all readers of Jack Reacher novels into the series, then the “Nowhere Man” was a kind of middle story carrying on the journey for the fans. This third book blows you out the water, flips you around onto your back and then the ending, slaps you in the face just for good measure.

“Nowhere Man” had you scared for Evan, how was he going to get out the situation he was in, the helper becoming the person who needed the help. The odds were stacked high against Evan, but not nearly as high as in the book “Hellbent”. We get the full picture, all bells and whistles of it, conspiracy, government, family, revenge, you name it, it is in this book.

So what was so good about this book?

By now after the second book “Nowhere Man” we have got used to Evan Smoak, trying to live a normal life in his apartment but also helping out people in distress. Not unlike Jack Reacher, but younger and probably with a lot more skills at his disposal, which he really needs, as people are trying to find him and kill him.

The opening of this book is brilliant, from the start there is a casual apartment chat with Evan’s love interest, straight (I mean straight) into a kidnap situation with his one and only mentor. The story then unfolds into such an amazing plot that we have to give Greg Hurwitz a pat on the back, he really utilises his skill full writing to create a bleak picture of Evan’s future. There are so many nice touches, Evan having to leave his so called “normal life”, bringing in additional characters to help assist him and a baddie that is truly bad.

I think this is the one thing that kept me so hooked into the book, Evan trying to understand “normal life” and human feelings as well as having to avenge a friends’ death and look out for people calling him for help on his emergency phone. He really is torn throughout the plot, on one hand trying to do the right thing, on the other hand wanting to gain a personal revenge. To have three rogue Orphans after him as well as twenty five trained operatives, you know the stakes are really high, how can he possibly survive this?

Final thoughts

With the intensity that Greg Hurwitz writes, you can start to feel a little out of breath whilst reading this book. There is one scene in the book, where Evan has to challenge a terrible gang leader in a ruined Church, just to protect an innocent. The scene layouts with descriptive writing and characterisations are so on point that you sense the loneliness Evan is feeling against the force of this whole army.

The main reason you start to feel out of breath, is you are not fully sure if the main character really wants to live or is going to stay alive. Most books like Jack Reacher, you kind of know that the main hero will live, fights are easily won and there are no wounds to the Hero at all.

Here though, you go through lots of Evans emotions, how should he act, will he gain revenge and what will that hold for his future? When you through into the mix a baddie like the new head of the Orphan Program, Van Sciver, (you can practically feel the hate oozing out of him towards Evan) you are then caught in the whirlwind of Evan’s survival world. Cue lots of fight scenes, last minute ingenuity, grit and determination, family bonds of love and trust plus an ending that leads into book number four I have to rate this as one of, if not the BEST book of 2018 so far……..

Earlier I raved on about new author Tom Wood in my previous post HERE! You can see that I was mightly impressed with the brilliant descriptive style of writing and for me, one of the books is so far topping the rating list for Crime Thriller books!

As I normally do, I went back to my book shelf and pulled out another Tom Wood book titled “The Enemy”. As I review the books after reading them, my first port of calls when analyzing, is the main question. Is this book like a Lee Child novel or a Jack Reacher character. Then I look at the author’s writing style to see whether this matches up to the skill level (of the highest order) of Lee Child.

You’ve already read this book?

I have read this book before, a couple of years ago and thought I’d try it again. To be honest I couldn’t quite remember the plot or whether the book was good or not. This last point didn’t really paint the book in the right light as surely I would have remembered this, if it was THAT good. Well for those who are like me and read so many books over a year, you will know that you kind of get mixed up with, which book was good and which book was just average. That is why I always recommend going back over old books to see what they are like in a new refreshing way, sometimes reading a book again in a new setting or environment can give a much better review than reading it the first time.

What’s the book like then?

This is the second book in the Tom Wood series and again centres around Victor the assassin. What I really, really like about this book is the plot which at first can seem slightly overwhelming as there are so many characters involved at first. As you continue to read through though, Tom Wood makes a brilliant story unfold before your eyes. Victor working for the CIA, in a way trapped by his new bosses who present him “Jobs” to do under very impossible time constraints. As with this Victor series, that is like Lee Child novels we get to see Victor pressed from powers above, against top formidable teams and to top it all off, he even has to deal with a mole in the CIA. No spoilers for you but I did want to mention a particular scene which is an example of the great work that Tom Wood achieves.

Infamous scene!

Anyone seen the film by John Woo called “Hard Boiled”? Very few people I would say, but there was this classic action film back in the day by one of the best action movie directors of the early nineties. Buy the film HERE!. The film has lots of action sequences that back then, everyone spoke about. There was a particular scene where a cop is trying to save people in a hospital and the whole sequence is just carnage, shotguns, people getting shot, martial arts, panic and terror. Can you picture it? If not, then click the link here to see this scene.

This scene depicts the last 30 or so pages of the book “The Enemy”, Victor is having a meal with his “girlfriend”. Again using his memory skill set he recalls something that has just happened to him on that particular night.

Too late, he knows the “Kidon” (Israel’s Mossad) are onto him and there is nothing he can do about it.

What happens next is such a page turner that you can’t stop reading and reading and reading until the book ends. 30 pages of Victor trying to save his “girlfriend”, taking out some other assassins, getting kidnapped, car crashing, epic gun fights in a warehouse to getting a blade of glass pushed in towards his eye. You actually feel quite relieved when the book has finished.

Final thoughts

I did actually laugh to myself when finishing this book as I had forgotten how good it was. The plot was quite demanding due to the various characters throughout who were again very well written. For each character there was a reason for them to be in there, you could also picture what they were like in person due to their dialogue. Again a great skill of the author Tom Wood. I do think this book is not for the faint-hearted, if reminded me of the earlier Lee Child books like Jack Reacher’s, “Killing Floor” and “Tripwire”.

“The Enemy is a book that will stay with you for a while after you have read it, how can Victor survive? You will have to read the next one in the series to find out……….

Let me know what you think after reading this book, whether you agree with me in the comments box.

I have found that lots of people are asking, what order to read the Jack Reacher books? Now most avid Jack Reacher fans would suggest reading from Book 1 “Killingfloor” to book 22 “Midnight Line”. Most people who are not avid Jack Reacher fans would not know that there are other books in between this selection. These otherwise unknown books really do enhance your understanding of who Jack Reacher truly is. For some of you who are not familiar with the Jack Reacher book series may be wondering who writes Jack Reacher novels. Find out below who writes Jack Reacher novels.

The Line Up (2010) Lee Child gives the inside story on Reacher and his origins.

What other books are from Lee Child like Jack Reacher?

Lee Child also published some short stories that give a back ground to Jack Reacher and also his many adventures from the past. I would seriously buy these short stories as they range from Reacher being younger and in his army days right through to when he left the army. They also give some clues into Reacher’s character and psyche’ why he thinks like he does and respond the way he does.

Competition for Jack Reacher?

It does seem that there are a lot of books out there with a one man hero going around unscathed and righting wrongs in the world. Now I know that you could look at it as since Lee Child has got famous from the Jack Reacher books, everyone has jumped on the band wagon and created similar characters. Well I did some research and after looking through some crime thriller books history, I have to conclude that again, NOTHING IS NEW UNDER THE SUN!

As you can see there are many Jack Reacher books to get stuck into. I guarantee that you will not be bored once you start on the once one which you canbuy here.

Conclusion

One of Lee Child’s influences for the Jack Reacher book series was an author called “John D MacDonald”. John D MacDonald wrote about a character called Travis McGee who has similarities to Jack Reacher in that if you are in trouble and lose something, Travis McGee can get it back for you for a fee!

There are 21 books in the series, and there’s only one of them where anything actually happens on page one. All the other 20, nothing ever happens on page one, nothing happens on page two… but by page three you cannot put it down. The thing that I found about these books that were published in the 60’s was that Travis is very much a hero no mess around type of guy. He looks the part – was in the US army, has few possessions and lives in a house boat. Thick wrists and long arms, 6ft 4″with superb reflexes just like someone else we know.

If you are interested in seeing another slightly older series but just as good as the current Lee Child Jack Reacher books, then look here to buy the first selection of them. Don’t forget the latest Lee Child novel is available to pre order HERE.

After reading the first Evan Smoak book titled “Orphan X” which is reviewed HERE. I had a scout round to see if I wanted to try another mystery book like Jack Reacher or go back and try an old Jack Reacher book. I was tempted to look into another book series just because I was sensing a need for a change in author.

The thing is, all my twitter feeds and Facebook posts were jumping around about the latest Greg Hurwitz book titled “Hellbent”. The reviews seemed out of this world and I thought right that’s decided it for me I’m going to go for this book. BUT and it’s a big BUT, I struggle to read books out of order. I like to read them as they have been written where possible, and for me, I knew that there was a second Evan Smoak book titled “The Nowhere Man”.

So that’s what I did, I went online to amazon (which you can do from my website HERE) and bought the book. It took me three days, that’s right three days to read the book and although it doesn’t top the Tom Wood book “A Time to Die”, it does come close to the other books in my page of great reads.

Is it better than Orphan X?

Well the short answer for this is a big fat NO! “Why oh, Why” you may ask. Well let me just recap, “Orphan X” is a classic read, as I mentioned before it is such a good book that it is going to be hard to beat. It’s not to say “The Nowhere Man” is not a great book, it is, just not in the same level as “Orphan X”. To me its like comparing a Ferrari car with a Range Rover. They are both class cars, both worth loads of money but in reality, everyone wants a Ferrari experience and the speed (which is what Orphan X is) but the Range Rover is there for a nice ride and a bit of a luxury holiday outdoor weekend away!

So you kind of get what I mean, “the Nowhere Man” is the perfect book to pick up for a weekend and get engrossed in the plot.

So what’s the Plot?

Back of the book

One day, though, Evan’s luck ran out . . .

Ambushed, drugged, and spirited away, Evan wakes up in a locked room with no idea where he is or who has captured him. As he tries to piece together what’s happened, testing his gilded prison and its highly trained guards for weaknesses, he receives a desperate call for help.

With time running out, he will need to out-think, out-manoeuvre, and out-fight an opponent the likes of whom he’s never encountered to have any chance of escape. He’s got to save himself to protect those whose lives depend on him. Or die trying . .

I didn’t know what to expect from this mystery book, as I just wanted to get started with the read and see where it would take me. The basic premise is that Evan is caught whilst trying to help someone in trouble, he as you well know is the help for people, but in this book the irony is that he can’t really help himself.

This plot was a great idea although it was quite samey all the way through the middle as it focused on Evan being held hostage. The descriptions were still brilliant, the action sequences ere amazing but just the pace of this book compared to “Orphan X” is the thing that let it down just slightly.

Has Greg Hurwitz lost it?

As with most books like Jack Reacher, and any mystery book or crime thriller series, there are some books that just don’t quite reach the high bar set by one of the other books in the pack. This just could not get to the bar that “Orphan X” set but then not many books could get that high either so its not really a bad thing.

What you saying?

The reality is, go and buy this book, see for yourself why I awarded it 8.9/10 and then let me know what you think. I’m sure that some people will agree with me about the pace, there will be some people who read this first before “Orphan X” and absolutely love it.

So there you have it, buy “The Nowhere Man” read it over a weekend, then let me know if you think I’m right or if you think I’ve been slightly harsh on this.

It was one of those days, you know, you’ve had them before. You’ve finished your latest book series after the Christmas period, you’ve had a short gap of not reading anything for a couple of weeks. Then the cravings start hitting, I NEED to read a decent book, especially at night before bed, something to look forward to as the nights get dark so quickly.

The next day, into the bookshop I go, I have a quick flick through the usual authors I know of, nope nothing new there, I spot a few others on the discount shelf (always looking for a bargain), nope nothing there worthy of attention. Then I have a quick “click and check” of some books, you know the method, check the back of a book, google the title and see what some reviews say. This is such a painful process as I only have 30 minutes lunch break and I HAVE to do this method currently as there are not many websites like www.bookslikejackreacher.co.uk which help you quickly find something that is decent.

After 20 minutes of my lunch break gone, I stumble upon an author called “Greg Hurwitz”. I thought, I recognise that surname from a book I’d bought before, which I thought was okay when I had read it. The book in front of me was titled “Orphan X” and to be honest looked okay but the main thing that I noticed on the front of the book was a quote from LEE CHILD stating that the book was “Outstanding in every way”

What happened next?

Yes you guessed it, I went and bought the book. It was quite funny though, as when I got home I realised that the author who I thought sounded the same, was in fact someone else entirely called Anthony Horowitz and the book was called “Trigger Mortis” which you could BUY HERE!

“Oh no” I thought had it all gone wrong, got the wrong author, perhaps read the wrong reviews, it’s probably not a book like Jack Reacher surely. Have I wasted my hard-earned cash??

Go on tell us….

I was greatly surprised to find out that this book is one of the best books like Jack Reacher out there currently. I’ve been introduced to a totally refreshing character named “Evan Smoak” who like Jack Reacher is a loner but again has an amazing set of skills to combat the bad guys. The plot is brilliant, Evan Smoak is a person who senses great victory in helping people who are in danger. He does this by leaving people that he has saved from harm with a phone number that they can pass onto anyone (only one) person they meet who is also in desperate need.

What I love about this plot is that you sense something bad is going to happen all the way through, it’s much too easy for Evan to go through life and not have any harm come his way. What would be the point in that, him helping people and strolling around, no one wants to read this. As you read more about his background, you realise that not all is as it seems and Evan is in great, great danger.

Is this as good as a Lee Child book?

As with all comparisons, it is hard to compare the two characters Jack Reacher and Evan Smoak. I can only say that for me, Evan Smoak is like a younger brother to Jack Reacher. He can handle himself, has the usual eye for detail and investigative skills, the main difference is that he is up to date with the latest technology to aid him. Evan has such an amazing set of skills from, knowing all the time if something is wrong in a situation to checking online databases and hacking into various systems to help him in the search for people.

Greg Hurwitz has created a great character who interacts with other people in his apartment block, and again, the detail that goes into painting the picture about the protection Evan has installed into his own apartment is incredible.

Final thoughts

I included Evan Smoak in my characters in books like jack reacher as he is such a brilliant read and hero that I think people who read Lee Child novels will absolutely love. He always seems to be out of danger and then the plot is flipped so that you can’t see a way out for him. I really do like the idea of the interaction of a man made human weapon, engaging with the public in his apartment block. These scenes really give a sense of the caring side of an assassin and it does help the reader to relate to the story a lot more.

I say buy this book now, you will not be disappointed at all!

Let me know what you think, when you have read the book in the comments below.

On my last post where I was totally and utterly shocked and surprised to find a book that might have just surpassed Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character. I decided to keep going with this series. I kept on buying the “Tom Wood” books and storing them up to read and review thoroughly, this Victor assassin series. I was slighty anxious as I had read “A Time To Die” (the more recent book in the series) and had reviewed that on this website. I didn’t want to feel that this first book in the series would be a let down or not on par with the more recent books in the series.

What just happened?

I went straight into the bookshop and bought the first book of the series titled “The Hunter”. Now I was starting to think, “Oh no” have I rushed with the rave reviews on my website and put the recommendations out too early for people to buy “A Timetp Die”. Yes “A Time to Die” is one of the best crime thriller books that I have read, perhaps debatable, but in my humble opinion its better than all the books in the Lee Child series.

Okay, What about “The Hunter” Book?

Well the back of the book says:

His name is a cover

He has no home

And he kills for a living

Victor is a hit man, a man with no past and no surname. His world is one of paranoia and obsessive attention to detail; his morality lies either dead or dying. No one knows what truly motivates the hunter. No one gets close enough to ask.

When a Paris job goes spectacularly wrong, Victor finds himself running for his life across four continents, pursued by a kill squad and investigated by secret services from more than one country. With meticulous style, Victor plans his escape . . . and takes the fight to his would-be killers.

In this first novel in the explosive Victor series, it’s not about right and wrong – only about who lives and who dies.

There you go, great back of the book synopsis, surely this is something that you, like me thought “Yes, this seems like it could be a good book”. After two chapters of reading “The Hunter” I was quietly smiling to myself, trying desperately to find negatives as I was reading but at the same time just agreeing that this was going to be another mighty fine read.

General idea

To try and understand the plot without spoiling it for people, I as a previous Jean Claude Van Damme fan (apologies I was a teen martial arts fan) there was one stand out film that this book brought back to my memory. The film was called “HARD TARGET” (BUY HERE) and was basically Van Damme, accidentally entering into a game where the hunter became the hunted. To be honest the film now looks a little dated and probably has “B” rated action, the plot though is really rather excellent. Specialist baddies, chasing after Van Damme who uses his ex army skills to defend himself and fight back. This is what Victor the assassin does in this book like Jack Reacher, being chased by deadly hardened trained teams who go up against him, with the intent to kill.

Tell us the good

I defy anyone to read this book and not finish it within a week! Bold statement I know and I am being deadly serious. The amazing pace, the twists and turns, the locations, all lead to a dramatic ending which leaves you just absolutely exhausted. We get to understand Victor, strange morals, thinking for himself, he really is about self-preservation. Even with all this going on, men reading this book will want to be him, cool in situations, always thinking ahead of the game, paranoid and observant, a cross between Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne. Perhaps the ultimate assassin you would say in some ways.

Okay you’ve convinced me

The reason this book is just like Jack Reacher is that again the author Tom Wood writes with such detail that you really feel like you are in the scenes. Jack Reacher isn’t exactly a hero and he does have strange morals, which relates slightly to Victor. For some reason you are routing for Victor even though he isn’t one of the good guys in a typical sense. You are practically willing him to get through to the end of the book. Even when everything is stacked against him and he is against some serious opposition, you are never sure he is going to make it.

I love the way that Victor even with all the skills in the world can still look and sound vulnerable. To me this is realistic, with so many enemies, so many tight situations that he has to think in an unconventional way to escape or not get killed. With this high el meant of danger and the sublime pace of this plot, I do put this book firmly up there with a high score like the best Lee Child, Jack Reacher novels.

Let me know what you think? Have I got the review right, is he as good as Jack Reacher? Leave comments below.